


Rules Are Made To Be Broken

by NyxErchomai



Series: Can We Keep Him? [5]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Ficlet, Friends With Benefits, No Dialogue, OH HO BUT ~~FEELINGS~~ HAVE COME TO SHAKE THINGS UP A BIT, One Shot, Pining, established arrangement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-06
Packaged: 2017-12-31 16:31:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1033867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyxErchomai/pseuds/NyxErchomai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz struggles to come to terms with his newfound feelings for Simmons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rules Are Made To Be Broken

**Author's Note:**

> Possible spoilers for 1.06

Sex with Simmons, Fitz has decided, is very much like sex with any other person. It begins the same way, progresses much like any other sexual encounter – not that he’s had very many –and ends pretty similarly to not only all the sex they’ve had, but to every sexual act ever committed in all of human history.

But lying in bed with her afterwards, when she’s drowsy and lethargic and she calls him Leo… Fitz doesn’t think anyone in the whole wide world has ever experienced that feeling. When she presses her ear to his chest to listen to his heartbeat, or when she traces circles in his skin because she’s too tired to think anything of it; Fitz would be lying if he said he didn’t live for those moments. But he’d be lying if he said they didn’t scare the shit out of him, too.

He goes through the same motions every time this happens, wars with himself while Jemma falls asleep beside him, tells himself that all of this – the bubble of warmth in his chest, the fuzzy contentedness making his fingertips tingle – is just endorphins. It’s the post-sex haze, he tells himself, even though by then he’s in the lab and Simmons is prattling on about biology and he still can’t stop thinking about how he can smell her shampoo whenever she leans close enough. And when he tells himself he’s just confused, it’s dinner time and her fingertips brush his when she passes him a fork and he has to physically repress the urge to catch her fingers in his and press them to his mouth.

Fitz is not a stupid man. He understands what’s happening, even as he tries to push it away and ignore it. And he knows when it started, too. He remembers it every time he looks at his damn pillow, and his fingers clench reflexively at the memory of Simmons kissing his cheek the day she got infected with the Chitauri virus. It was the first time she kissed him like that. Without some underlying, flirtatious meaning. He remembers feeling his stomach drop, and how it rose back up full of butterflies. And his fingers dug into the pillow as his mind went blank because _oh shit_ didn’t seem strong enough to convey how utterly and royally screwed he was.

For the first time in months, he says no to sex. Simmons takes it in stride, assumes he’s feeling under the weather, and doesn’t seem to notice when he spends the whole day sulking and kicking himself. He understands that he needs the space, knows that sex now will only make this – whatever it is – a hundred times worse, but still bitterly regrets the logic behind his refusal. He wants to touch her, to run his fingers through her hair and plant kisses along her belly. It’s the part of him that wants to hold her close to him afterwards, to feel her fall asleep against him and to listen to her breathing that scares him so much, and is the driving force behind his _no thanks, maybe another time_. He doesn’t want to feel that way. He doesn’t want to feel as if the lines between _friends_ and _more-than friends_ is blurring, when they’ve spent so long making sure that those streams never crossed.

They talked about this, years ago, when they were laying out the ground rules for their arrangement. _No feelings_ , Simmons scrawled across the top of the page, and Fitz underlined it boldly, smirking. “No feelings,” he’d affirmed, and at the time he never thought he’d see himself break that rule. He cared about Simmons, but he could never see himself loving her. They were too similar, too clinical and detached. Love wasn’t what they wanted. Funny how love didn’t stay away just because he told himself he didn’t _want_ it. Fitz could have kicked himself.

He’d been so stupid, so idiotic, to think that there was ever any way he could avoid this. It might have taken years, but there was no way they couldn’t go into an arrangement like theirs and _not_ be affected by it. Hell, he knew Simmons’ body almost as well as he knew his own, could point out every goddamn freckle, mole and scar with his eyes _closed_ , and here he was thinking he could keep going along with this as though he wasn’t falling in love with her.

And goddamn it, he _was_! Somewhere between leaving the lab and coming onto the Bus, he hadn’t just blurred the line, he’d leapt over it with abandon. And now he was sitting at his desk staring as Simmons chewed her pen, totally aware of what he was doing and completely powerless to stop. It was as if he’d skipped the “falling” stage and dived straight into the deep end, only to realise he couldn’t swim. He hated it almost as much as he never wanted it to end.

He lay in the dark alone and wondered if he’d always loved Simmons and he figured he probably had. You had to love a person at least a little bit to share not only your bed but your entire life with them, right? There had to be _something_ there, something that kept them together all this time, without ever boring of each other. Fitz fell asleep thinking about it and dreamt of marrying a woman who had no face underneath her veil. He woke up in a panic, and spent the day avoiding everyone. Mostly Simmons.

He spent days, _weeks_ , alternating between denying that anything had changed and wallowing in the realisation that nothing would ever be the same. He slept only when he couldn’t stay awake again, and dreamt every night of a life spent with a woman whose face he never saw, and woke every morning feeling as though he had never slept at all. He denied himself gratuitous time with Simmons, seeking comfort in Ward to tide him through the nights he couldn’t bear to spend alone. He spent weeks craving her touch, her smell, wanting nothing more than to return her advances when she tentatively approached him, hating the small flicker of disappointment that flashed across her face every time he turned her down. But it was for the best. Definitely for the best.

And when he could no longer deny himself the temptation, could no longer bring himself to say no, he knocked on her door and her eyes lit up with hope and relief, and he couldn’t resist taking the plunge. And he discovered that night that sex with Simmons was decidedly _not_ like sex with other people, not even in the slightest, because he was not in love with “other people”.

Afterwards, as Simmons lay curled against his side, Fitz could barely breathe from the weight of all the love he had for her pressing down onto his chest, years’ worth of admiration, respect and love accumulating into a pool that made him feel as though he were sinking. When she slipped into unconsciousness, and pressed her face into the crook of his neck, he couldn’t help himself from murmuring _I love you_ , as if whispering confessions to the dark could ease the heaviness on his heart.

That night the woman had Jemma’s face, but Fitz didn’t feel any better when he woke.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy, I had to get this out of my system. I will probably come back and add other chapters/one shots in that will fit chronologically before this one, but ALL ROADS LEAD HERE. HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT.


End file.
